Today's
electric utility industry was "born" in the 1930's, when fossil fuel
prices were cheap, and the cost of wheeling the electricity via transmission
power lines, was also cheap. "Central" power plants could be
located hundreds of miles from the load centers, or cities, where the
electricity was needed. These extreme inefficiencies and cheap fossil fuel
prices have added a considerable economic and environmental burden to the
consumers and the planet.

Centralized
energy is found in the form of electric utility companies that generate power
from "central" power plants. Central power plants are highly
inefficient, averaging only 33% net system efficiency. This means that the
power coming to your home or business - including the line losses and
transmission inefficiencies of moving the power - has lost 75% to as much as 80%
energy it started with at the "central" power plant. These
losses and inefficiencies translate into significantly increased energy expenses
by the residential and commercial consumers.

The
electric power
generation, transmission and distribution system (the electric
"grid") is changing and evolving from the electric grid of the
19th and 20th centuries, which was inefficient, highly-polluting, very
expensive and
“dumb.”

The "old" way of generating and distributing
energy resembles this slide:

The electric grid of the 21st century (see slide below)
will be
Decentralized, Smart, Efficient and provide "carbon
free energy" and “pollution
free power” to customers who remain on the
electric grid. Some customers will choose to dis-connect from the
grid entirely.
(Electric grid represented by the small light blue circles in the slide below.)

Typical
Central power plants
and the electric utility companies
that own them will either be shut-down, closed or go out of business due
to one or more of the following: failed business model, inordinate
expenses related to central power plants that are inefficient, excessive
pollution/emissions, high costs, continued reliance on the use of fossil
fuels to generate energy, and the failure to provide efficient, carbon
free energy and pollution free
power.

“spending
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars every year for
oil, much of it from the Middle East, is just about the single
stupidest thing that modern society could possibly do. It’s
very difficult to think of anything more idiotic than that.”
~ R.
James Woolsey, Jr., former Director of the CIA

According
to R. James Woolsey, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency,
“The basic insight is to realize that global warming, the geopolitics
of oil, and warfare in the Persian Gulf are not separate problems —
they are aspects of a single problem, the West’s dependence on oil.”